Only a few years ago, on the night of Bush's victory in 2004, the conservative movement seemed indomitable. In fact, it was rapidly falling apart. Conservatives knew how to win elections; however, they turned out not to be very interested in governing. Throughout the decades since Nixon, conservatism has retained the essentially negative character of an insurgent movement.
The New Yorker
The Fall of Conservatism
May 26, 2008
Classy tome in the May 26, 2008 New Yorker magazine examining what NYM contributor George Packer speculates to be "The Fall of Conservatism."
The article traces the origins of the American conservative movement from Barry Goldwater through the heady days of Ronald Reagan, and up to the Dubya adminstration, a time when our elected American president failed even to tally a majority vote, and Ronald Reagan's "big tent" seemed to be a mite tattered.
Borrowing from American author Sam Tanenhaus, author Packer moves on to draw some intriguing historical parallels between resulting political movements which may have been later generated, even in the wake of failed presidential campaigns:
Goldwater was to Reagan as McGovern is to Obama. From the ruins of Goldwater’s landslide defeat in 1964, conservatives began the march that brought them fully to power sixteen years later. If Obama wins in November, it will have taken liberals thirty-six years. Tanenhaus pointed out how much of Obama’s rhetoric about a “new politics” is reminiscent of McGovern’s campaign, which was also directed against a bloated, corrupt establishment. In “The Making of the President 1972,” Theodore White quotes McGovern saying, “I can present liberal values in a conservative, restrained way. . . . I see myself as a politician of reconciliation.”The article also adds some insight into John McCain's possible strategy in Packer's conjectural American post conservative era, wherein the odd Nixon/Reagan coalition of economic conservatives, religionists, super-patriots, etc., has arguably fallen apart at the seams.
This is a truly meaty piece. No brief summary can do it justice; so we won't even try.
Read George Packer's full New Yorker article here.
And please don't forget to come back with your comments, once you've fully digested this most-excellent article.
